


White Chrysanthemum

by zetsubooty



Series: Honey Clovers [2]
Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Angry Sex, Backstory, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Side Story, Slightly - Freeform, just generally a Fun Time for all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 08:01:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8659069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsubooty/pseuds/zetsubooty
Summary: Shinooka asks him out during their last year of high school, and Abe ends up discovering a lot of things about himself because of it, some of which he could've done without knowing.His mother still wonders how, exactly, he managed to fuck THAT up so spectacularly.Side story to my Sakabe fic, And Tonight I Give You My Heart.





	

**Author's Note:**

> apparently im going into fic overdrive here I am so sorry to the people who subscribed to me u made a Mistake

It’s at the end of their third summer of high school.

No one’s surprised that the little public school falls far short of Koushien, but even so, it’s not like he’s without frustration. He cries along with everyone else, there on the field, and again, silently, on the long car ride home, and his father, in a rare instance of merciful tact, doesn’t say a goddamn thing about it. Abe’s a dutiful kid, though, so he still shows up for practice the next morning, partly to help pass the torch on to the clever second-year they’ve all decided should be the next captain. Shinooka’s there, too, doing the same with the managers, but they both leave early, end up walking their bikes back to the campus together and talking about the passage of time as though they were much older than eighteen and seventeen.

When they get back to the bike racks, Shinooka asks him to wait, then fidgets for a moment, but not too long (she’s always been very considerate of others and their time) before she turns very red and bends forward with her hands curled into tense fists, and blurts out, “I like you! Will you go out with me?”

He’s startled, and he just stares at her until he sees a small wet circle suddenly appear on the ground below her face and he remembers that politeness requires that he answer promptly, and not leave her stuck in an awful limbo that he can only imagine. He clears his throat, thinking quickly, if less coherently than normal.

_ Shinooka and…me? Dating. Holding hands, I guess? Talking? Not bad. _

“I’ll go out with you.” She twitches, then slowly straightens out, smiling at him, and he reflects that she  _ is _ very pretty, it’s a nice smile.

They both ignore the fact that he didn’t say ‘I like you’ back.

* * *

 

It’s actually a lot of fun. Shinooka flings herself into being a girlfriend with all the enthusiasm and competence that she had brought to bear on being a team manager, and yet still manages not to be clingy, to leave him plenty of time for school and friends and baseball. They even spend several “dates” playing catch or heading down to the batting cages.

She makes him bento, sometimes (ever practical, she makes sure to phone his mother and let her know, although Abe would have been perfectly happy to have two, if he’s honest), complete with all the necessary cutesy decorations. His guy friends tease him about what a lucky bastard he is and try and steal some when he’s not looking.

He  _ is _ lucky, he supposes.

His mother certainly thinks so. “Chiyo-chan is such a nice girl, I don’t know what on  _ earth _ she wants with Taka! But I’m so relieved to know  _ someone _ will be looking after him when I’m gone,” she sighs to a neighbour over coffee at the kitchen table, as though he wasn’t sitting right next door doing practice exams. But if his mother agrees that it’s a good match, then that just adds to the list of reasons he shouldn’t break up with Shinooka.

They kiss, usually. Even ‘make out’ several times, briefly and uncomfortably over the armrest in a movie theatre, in his livingroom during a study date when his mom went out to buy groceries for supper (Chiyo-chan was, of course, invited), in a deserted corner of the school library during another study session, and once engaging in what he believes constitutes ‘heavy petting’ behind a bush. It’s…interesting, he finds her body curious and nice, and touching and being touched is good, but…

But he’s beginning to wonder if there’s something wrong with him.

Because it doesn’t leave him all love-eyed and panting and full of such obvious desire as it does Shinooka, and he wonders if maybe that’s a girl thing, but when he thinks about it, that’s much the opposite of what he’d heard on the subject.

Being a very direct person, he asks her about it the next day at lunch, tells her about how he’s been feeling, or rather, how he  _ hasn’t _ been feeling, and asks her if it’s the same for her, or if it’s different, then could she explain what it feels like so he’ll know when it happens and then he’s very confused because she starts crying and it slowly dawns on him that he’s said something very,  _ very _ crass.

Many girls would’ve run away at that point, and it’s not that Shinooka doesn’t have the urge, but she stands there still, back very straight, face composed despite its redness and the tears flowing freely down her cheeks. She raises her chin, and says, “I knew we’d be having this conversation at some point, I just hoped it wouldn’t be so soon,” swallows, then continues, voice steadier, “I…I’ve kind of suspected for a while, but… Abe, have you ever even  _ had _ a crush on a girl?”

Abe frowns, giving the question serious consideration. “Don’t believe so, no.”

“But… You and Sadaharu-kun, you’re really close with him.”

“Yeah.”

“And you speak really highly of him all the time. I’ve  _ heard _ the stuff you say, and it’s a little… And you’re always touching him…”

“Yeah, because we’re  _ friends _ . Normal guy stuff. What are you—”

“ _ Is _ it?”

“Eh?”

“Normal guy stuff.”

Abe crosses his arms over his chest, exhaling an impatient breath. “Just what are you implying, Shinooka?”

“I’m implying that you have more romantic feeling for Sadaharu-kun than you’ve  _ ever _ had for me. I’m implying that the level of messed up you were in middle school over Haruna-san was—”

“Could you  _ not _ bring him into this,  _ thanks _ .”

“But you had  _ feelings _ for him!” Her voice cracks, leaving Abe staring at her, wide-eyed. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t have hurt you so much! You’re stronger than that.”

“And you’re smarter than this, Shinooka. Stop saying such ridiculous things.”

“Is it really so ridiculous?”

“Utterly.”

_ He’s _ the one that flees, then, although she doesn’t come back to class for the rest of the afternoon. When he texts her that evening to confirm their plans for the weekend, she sends him back a curt text asking if he is honestly so dense that he doesn’t realise they’re breaking up after a conversation like that. He doesn’t respond, because the answer is obvious and embarrassing, and he cries after  _ that _ , though as much with confusion and shame as with any true mourning over the end to the relationship.

He feels bad about hurting her, leaves her an adequate letter in her shoe locker some days later apologising for his insensitivity and for wasting her time (finding space enough to assert that he has given it proper consideration, but he is definitely  _ not _ gay) and hoping that she’s able to find someone who will treat her better soon enough. Several girls descend on him later that day with grim faces and threatening body language and tell him that Chiyo-chan bawled when she read the letter and was he just intent on being an absolute  _ monster _ and please, would he never speak to her again. (For her part, Shinooka’s a little mad when she finds out about that, but a little bit relieved when Abe gives her some space.)

All in all, both of them come out of the experience figuring it’s not the  _ worst _ first relationship a person could have. Shinooka carries the grief of it in her for a long time, though it never comes close to destroying her core, hurting her sense of self-worth. She’s made of sterner stuff than could ever be destroyed by one Abe Takaya, especially when he’s not even trying. Decades later, she still looks at her grandchildren sometimes, and wonders what they would look like if their grandfather had had droopy stormy grey eyes instead of warm brown ones, if he had had that wide, expressive mouth that she still thinks she remembers how it felt to kiss. But it’s an old hurt, and she loves the man who  _ is _ grandfather to those children plenty and perhaps more than she ever loved  _ him _ . Still, one can’t help indulging in what-ifs, every now and then.

Abe decides that entrance exams are much more important than considering his sexuality and future dating life, and tries to put the question out of his mind for the time being. But it keeps intruding at inopportune times, and he finds he’s started avoiding Sadaharu, which is irritating, but he supposes he can’t be blamed for feeling a bit awkward about it, now that it’s been pointed out how much he likes him. Not in  _ that _ way, though.

And then there’s researching online and visiting campuses and looking up professors he might like to work under if he chooses to go into the sciences or  _ does _ he want to go into the sciences or do something more practical or… Abe Takaya is not particularly accustomed to lacking a firm direction, and finds the experience unpleasant enough that he decides to go into business and focus on finding a school with a good team.

Which is how he ends up staring across a chain-link fence at that muscle-headed bastard and his cocky grin and wanting to punch him in his beautifully white teeth just as much as he had four years ago and every time he’d seen him since then. Haruna, for his part, seems delighted to see him, is confusingly genuine-sounding when he says he hopes Takaya gets in there, and he’d better not have gone soft, because his fastballs are better than ever and he’s really getting more control now, does he wanna come see? Abe does, and he  _ is _ impressed, not that he lets on, impressed enough that he exchanges numbers with Haruna after and doesn’t immediately go home and tear up his application for that school as he’d been inclined to when he first clapped eyes on Haruna.

But he doesn’t end up going there. When he texts Haruna to let him know, Haruna suggests they hang out anyway, celebrate the university he  _ did _ get into. Abe’s perplexed, but says yes. He finds himself in Haruna’s dorm room. They watch a movie and eat microwave popcorn lying on their stomachs beside each other, close enough that their arms, their hips nudge against each other. It’s fun, and Haruna’s different from how he was back then, but the old hurt still lurks under the surface, and Abe cries on the bike ride home, glad that darkness hides what the wind doesn’t whip away into the night.

He’s no coward, though, and then next time Haruna asks him to hang out, he resolves to confront him about it.

It’s ideal, it’s on a long weekend and Haruna’s roommate has gone home, so it’ll be minimally awkward and maybe, just  _ maybe _ he can get some of the answers he wants.

But he doesn’t, he just ends up looming over Haruna where he sits on his bed with his arms crossed over his chest, feeling like a petulant child screaming at an adult for all that he’s several centimeters taller than Haruna and speaking in a dangerously level voice.

Haruna just seems confused, says he though Takaya had got over all that bullshit and was ready to be friends again.

“Friends? We were  never fucking  _ friends _ , you thick clod. I was a fucking target to you, nothing more.”

“Hey, that’s  _ not _ fair! And anyway, I was going through a lot of shit at the time, and—”

“Like that fucking excuses it? I  _ looked up _ to you! I fucking  _ worshiped _  you, and I stood through it all, through the bruising and the ridicule and  _ all _ your self-important bullshit, because—”

He stops then, blinking at Haruna, who scowls back at him, large, expressive eyes narrowed and the mouth that usually traces such a pleasing, obnoxious curve pressed into an ugly line.

“Fuck.” Abe stands up straight, steps away, scrubbing his hands back through his hair, his stomach somehow simultaneously dropping and filling with tingling delight, walks over to look, unseeing, out the window.

Haruna stands, closes the distance between them, reaches for his arm, starting, “Look, I’m  _ sorry _ , if you—”

“Don't. Don’t… _ touch _ me.” Abe finds himself staring at the hand still on his arm, in firm defiance of his demand, stares at the ( _ oh fuck, gorgeous _ ) boy in front of him, and then, as though his body belonged to somebody else, somebody who knew better than he did what he wanted, what he’d been aching for for such a long time, shifts to grab Haruna’s arms, propelling him back against the wall beside the window and crushing their lips together.

It’s  _ nothing _ like it was with Shinooka, it makes it look like a pale, distant moon in comparison to the heat and crushing fury of his desire. Haruna struggles out of his grip and grabs his ass, pulling him tight against his body, and it just feels  _ right _ , he feels pulled to touch in a way that he never did with her, feels a need to see Haruna’s body naked, but is helpless to do anything more than kiss, kiss, and kiss some more. His lips splits open on someone’s teeth, and they both taste copper-thick-red and Haruna laughs and cups his cheek and kisses his lip tenderly and then bites it and so Abe pulls his hair and it just makes Haruna laugh all the more except that it turns into a moan, his hips jerking and Abe can feel his hard-on through his pants and it awakens in him fresh fire, even more desperate need than he had thought possible.

He’s thought about what ‘doing it’ would look like, considered the merits of various activities and positions, but hadn’t exactly imagined grabbing Haruna Motoki’s thigh and hoisting his leg up until he gets the hint and wraps it around his hips, but it all just feels so fucking  _ easy _ , fitting their bodies together, thrusting against him and feeling his fingers curl on the back of his collar, pulling, pulling, as Haruna gasps hot breaths against his neck and keeps fucking  _ biting  _ him and it pisses him off but also leaves him lightheaded and moaning and stumbling backwards and taking Haruna’s shirt with him. Haruna follows him with a triumphant laugh, ripping the shirt away and flinging it across the room and then pulling Abe’s off him and pushing him down on the bed, pushing between his legs and kissing his chest and leaving Abe to bury his fingers in his hair and gasp half-words at the ceiling that become more explicit as he realises the downward trend of Haruna’s movements. And then Haruna’s sliding back off the bed and sucking wet kisses just above Abe’s belt and he can only stare in amazement as Haruna undoes his pants, then lunges for the bedside table and a condom, grinning at him like an asshole as he pulls his dick out of his underwear and rolls the latex tube down on it, followed quickly, almost  _ too _ quickly by his mouth, so that Abe cries out, embarrassing and undignified and he realises that the fucking  _ curtains _ are open, and the nearest building isn’t that close, but close enough, and his face is burning, but all he can fucking do is pant and moan and bury his hands in Haruna’s silky, thick, gorgeous hair and fuck his mouth.

He hears the telling clink of Haruna’s own belt being undone, feels the shift in the rhythm of his movements, and, propelled by some strange strength, heaves himself up to watch Haruna, beautiful, amazing, talented, charming shit-head Haruna, jerk himself off with Abe’s cock engulfed in his mouth, slippery and hot and at least Haruna doesn’t bite him  _ now _ , just pulls back to lick up the length of his dick and then pull him down for a kiss, spitty and lovely and teasing fingertips on the underside of his dick until Abe shoves Haruna back with a fierce grin and a rough, “Let me fucking  _ come _ already, you bastard.”

Haruna laughs again and then bends down, licks him, teasing, leaving him squirming and moaning and almost ready to  _ smack _ him and then breathes against his skin, “Don’t be so hasty, I wanna come  _ with _ you,” and it undoes him, it leaves him murmuring incoherent assent as his fingers creep along the comforter and then grip, cling to the edge of the bed as Haruna slowly, agonisingly slowly opens his lips around the head, sucking him in and never breaking eye contact. It’s Abe who shuts his eyes, Abe who cries out, legs tensing until he’s holding himself up off the bed with the pleasure of it, coming like he never has on his own, blinking his eyes open only when he feels Haruna’s choked gasp. There’s not much to see, especially with the way Haruna arches, sticking his ass out in a way Abe finds hazily intriguing, but his O-face is gorgeous and so is the way he shivers and curls his arm around Abe’s leg and as soon as he thinks he’s done, he slides bonelessly off the bed and into his lap, wrapping his arms around Haruna’s shoulders and kissing him over and over and then subsiding into a sleepy snuggly stillness.

Haruna goes out to buy them supper and another box of condoms and Abe texts his mom to tell her he’s going to stay over at his senpai’s, they’re gonna watch a movie and senpai’s worried about him biking home so late again, and if she’s a bit perplexed by the unusual amount of explanation he offers, she doesn’t indicate it in her text back. Haruna comes back and throws corner-store bento on the bed and then strips something else out of its packaging and drops it in the cup on a shelf next to the mirror. A toothbrush. He grins broadly at Abe, then flops on the bed beside him, kissing him sweetly.

They fuck a lot that first weekend, enough that Haruna has to go out for a second box of condoms (“Just to be sure.”) Abe’s almost glad for the activity, it keeps him from thinking too much about this thing he’s just discovered. For half a second, he considers texting Shinooka to tell her she was right, thank you, but he’s not actually  _ that _ oblivious. He still spends a fair amount of time meditating on it, staring up at the ceiling in the dark with Haruna snoring beside him or curled against his side, half-rousing to press sloppy kisses to his skin and then slipping back under.

Abe quickly discovers he likes Haruna best like that, when he’s droopy-eyed and a sweet warm kitten of a man, draping himself over Abe’s limbs and half-heartedly trying to start things he has no energy to finish, fights or making out or both at once, and sometimes coming awake enough that his kisses turn more forceful and leave red dots on Abe’s arms and thighs and stomach and then he straddles him and teases him with the plushness of his ass until Abe laughs and then asks and then snaps out a command. Haruna leans over him lazily to reach the bedside table like it’s  _ his _ idea, which, of course, it is, and then lets Abe watch the moonlight kiss the angles and curves of his body as he fucks himself on his cock.

In the end, he concludes there’s nothing to think  _ about _ , there’s simply the fact that he finds Haruna’s naked body incredibly pleasing and would like to continue to enjoy it for as long as possible, and he’s perfectly indifferent to the label on whatever box that means he fits into.

They meet when they can, when practice and schoolwork and absent roommates permit, and when circumstances don’t, they send occasional texts, no-nonsense and friendly and plenty enough for him. They even have phone sex, once, but the experience is too embarrassing to be more than dubiously hot for Abe, however much he might enjoy listening to Haruna purr indecent things at him and jerk off with his name on his lips.

They never speak words like ‘love’, and Abe’s not entirely sure that it’s what he feels, anyway, but he thinks he feels loved, feels appreciated, at least.

That is, until they’ve been doing it for a little more than a year and he makes the mistake of talking about those feelings with Haruna one afternoon while they play a fighting game in their underwear, leaning in an inelegant, sweaty, delightful pile on top of pillows at the foot of his bed. Haruna hits pause and turns on him with a perplexed frown, and snaps out, “What the hell, exactly, do you think is going  _ on _ , here?”

“I thought…” As an older sibling, Abe hasn’t had much opportunity to experience that feeling when someone suddenly changes the rules midway through the game, pulls some kind of bullshit-seeming loophole out of the depths of the rulebook you can’t read yet that means, as always, that they win and you lose. He feels it now, though, feels sick with it. “I thought we were dating,” he finishes, voice low, chin pulled down towards his chest with a defensiveness that he never feels with anyone else.

Haruna barks out a laugh. “We’re  _ friends _ . We fuck, sure, and, like, I got a lotta respect for you, dude, but… I don’t wanna be your fucking  boyfriend .  _ You _ see us going out for candle-lit dinners, huh?”

For once in his life, Abe looks away, doesn’t fight, doesn’t storm and yell and  _ actually _ punch Haruna, as much as he wants to. Something in him breaks open, because even if this thing that apparently wasn’t dating, even if it didn’t rule his life the way it did some of his peers, it was  _ important _ to him,  _ Haruna _ was important to him, deep under his skin and at the core of him in a way that he had always assumed  _ he _ was for Haruna, too. Perhaps not love, but something that could be mistaken for it. And that’s what this is, that’s what everything to do with Haruna has always been, a fucking mistake that he keeps on making.

Abe has enough pride and self-control that he doesn’t cry right then, even when Haruna pulls him into an awkward hug, even when he rolls him on his back and kisses him everywhere but his face, pushes himself down Abe’s body, leaving him with his head tipped back off the foot of the bed, hiding the tears that do collect in his eyes as he builds towards orgasm with his fingers twisting in Haruna’s long hair.

He’d like to pretend that was the last time. That would’ve been more poetic. Would've left him with his pride.

It wasn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Haruna a lot, and he's honestly not TRYING to be mean to Abe, here, or anything, he just...doesn't understand him. He's doing his best to take care of him in the ways he knows how, but they're...just not so well suited, at least not here.
> 
> Hydrangea: heartlessness, pride.


End file.
